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Posted by: J. Stephen Wilson
on Sep 22, 2011
Tagged in: Untagged
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Instructions and rules for the calendar year 2011 green card lottery (DV-2013) were just posted by the U.S. Department of State (DOS). To the disappointment of millions of citizens of Bangladesh, this impoverished nation was declared ineligible for the upcoming green card lottery program for the first time.
To be eligible the total number of immigrants from any given country cannot exceed 50,000 for the previous five years. If they do, that country automatically becomes ineligible until their numbers once again dip below the 50K threshold.
With registration set to run for 30 days starting October 4th, the program will award 50,000 diversity visas out 100,000 randomly selected “winners” from the total pool of applicants. In 2010, there were nearly 15 Million registrants worldwide. Of these, 7.67 Million or 52% were from Bangladesh alone.
On the plus side, Poland is once again eligible for the lottery after being disqualified in 2007. And the newly recognized Republic of South Sudan is also eligible.
There were no other major changes in the rules from last year, although there were some clarifications. For example, the newly published official instructions state, "…although same-sex marriages are not recognized by immigration law for the purpose of immigrating to the United States, your same-sex partner is free to submit his/her own entry into the DV program."
What that means is if a same-sex partner wins, then he or she will not be allowed to immigrate with you.
Some applicants accidentally run afoul of the rules when they are in the middle of a divorce. Since applicants have to choose between divorced or married it is not clear what to do if they are separated. If the applicant does not list them as a spouse, or if they do not have access to a recent photo, they may be disqualified.
Finally, those from countries identified as ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’ “… may [receive a] significantly increased level of scrutiny and time necessary for processing.” This has always been standard practice, but may have higher visibility since conservatives including Representative Elton Gallegly (R-CA) raised the possibility of terrorists getting visas during Congressional hearings in April 2011. In effect this means that winners from those countries should not delay submitting their paperwork as soon as their ranking number becomes "current" (as published by DOS in the monthly Visa Bulletins).
Although missing from the instructions, applicants can fix their lottery photos to be compatible with official U.S. passport photo requirements at: http://travel.state.gov/_res/flash/cropper/FIG_cropper.html#. Just choose a picture, use the online tool to crop until it meets the requirements and click “Save Photo.”
Afterwards, DV-2013 applicants can easily register for the lottery themselves for free at the official government website during the 30-day open registration period. Or, applicants can use an ethical lottery service any time of year and pay for complete application checking, free airfare for winners, multi-year entries, and notification services -- so losing their confirmation number is no longer a concern.
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